


Night Bus

by allmystars



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel and Dean Winchester in Love, Castiel/Dean Winchester Anniversary, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fluff and Angst, Kissing at Midnight, Light Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Returning Home, Voicemail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:47:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26517688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allmystars/pseuds/allmystars
Summary: “Heya, Cas, it’s… well, you know who it is. Of course you do.”***Castiel has a choice to make and not much time to make it. Does he get off the bus in Lebanon? Or leave Dean behind for bigger and brighter things?And if he heads back to Kansas City, how does he say goodbye to a twelve-year love?***“I’ll be at the station, alright? I’ll wait until the last bus leaves tonight if I have to, but if you’re not on it… if you’re not there, then I’ll take that as the end."
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 24
Kudos: 222
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	Night Bus

**Author's Note:**

> It's September 18th! You know what that means!
> 
> DEANCASVERSARY!
> 
> Happy 12 years to these two, and thank you to [DisenchantedHalo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgawse/pseuds/DisenchantedHalo), spaceboundwitch, and [sparrowtail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowtail) for beta-reading this for me!
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you think!
> 
> Inspired by the song "Night Bus" by Gabrielle Aplin

_9:09 PM_

_“Heya, Cas, it’s… well, you know who it is. Of course you do.”_ A soft, nervous chuckle crackles over the line. 

_“Look, I know you’ve got this great thing going for you in the city, and I know it means the world to you, but—but I can’t keep standing in your way, okay?”_

There’s a heavy, drawn-out sigh. An over-long pause. Then, in the softest whisper, _“I can’t keep doing this, Cas. I can’t keep loving you from four hours away. All the missed calls and cut-off trips home… I can’t do it.”_ His voice starts to tremble, and Castiel grips his phone tight, closing his eyes like that’ll do anything to block out Dean’s words. 

_“I’ll be at the station, alright? I’ll wait until the last bus leaves tonight if I have to, but if you’re not on it… if you’re not there, then I’ll take that as the end. Okay? I, uh… I gotta go. I love you—”_

The voicemail cuts off with a beep, stealing the breath from Castiel’s lungs, but he doesn’t drop the phone from his ear. Not yet. His heart feels like it’s about to explode—crack down the centre and burst from his chest all at the same time. 

He can’t breathe.

His bus ticket is a crumpled ball in his fist.

He needs to go.

_9:15 PM_

“Last call for the night bus! The night bus to Lebanon! Last call!”

Castiel steps up into the dark, dimly lit aisle, his bag slung over his shoulder with enough clothes for the weekend. Honestly, he doesn’t even know if he’ll need it—doesn’t know if he’ll make it off the bus—but it’s a start. It’s a start.

He shuffles along the aisle, ignoring the harsh glow of phone screens and the cries of tired children as he finds a window seat in the back, dropping his bag on the chair next to him. Not that he thinks anyone will sit there since the bus is nowhere near capacity, but he doesn’t want to give anyone the chance to try.

He sinks into the worn seat, not bothering to lean back or rest his eyes, turning them instead to the window and all the city lights as the bus pulls out of the station and heads for home.

Castiel’s home.

Though he’s still not entirely sure what, or _who_ , that is.

_9:36 PM_

_“Heya, Cas, it’s… well, you know who it is. Of course you do.”_

With his headphones jammed in his ears, Castiel listens. Listens and listens and listens. It makes him smile. That laugh, with its rumbling timbre and smokey, smooth cadence, sending shivers through him like it always has. 

Of course he knows. It’s Dean. It’s always Dean.

The way he says Castiel’s name—his nickname that Dean gave him—feels like the first time, every time. Twelve years is a long time to love someone, but Castiel has done it every day. 

That first day was different, though, and he smiles a rueful, nostalgic smile just thinking about it. About how Dean had fumbled his way through a pick-up line after class; how he’d been too damn cocky for his own good, and how Castiel had turned him down flat.

He remembers that as the first time Dean called him Cas. It was the first time _anyone_ called him Cas.

Now, he looks at a young woman, no older than Castiel was when he met Dean, smiling down at her phone, the blue glow illuminating the tilt of her lips as she tucks a fiery strand of hair behind her ear. She has freckles like Dean, but not so many.

Who has her smiling like that? Who is she going home to?

Does he have green eyes and freckles, too? Or is she sweet and soft—brown hair and dark skin? Do they wear converse? Or leather boots and plaid?

Castiel can’t help but long for his man in leather and plaid, and maybe that means he’ll stay. Or maybe it doesn’t.

_10:02 PM_

_“Look, I know you’ve got this great thing going for you in the city—”_

Castiel sighs, hitting pause on the recording. He does have a good thing. A real good thing going. It’s his dream job with _all the bells and whistles_ as Dean puts it. He’d be a fool to give that up.

A lead editor at The Kansas City Star? With full benefits, health insurance and, after a few years, paid time off? And all he has to do is relocate? How could he say no? Dean knows he couldn’t, and bless the man for giving him an easy out. 

But does he want an out? 

Castiel’s eyes find a single mom in the dark, a newborn on her chest and what looks to be a set of twins curled up on the seat beside her, both of them with their thumbs stuck between their teeth. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but they can’t be any older than three.

Dean wants kids, Castiel knows that, and at one point, he did, too. But does he really? Does he _now_? When his life is just beginning and he’s got so much to look forward to? The woman’s head bobs as she falls asleep, probably more exhausted than she’s ever been in her life, before jerking awake again with a soft snort.

An ache builds in his chest, right about where his heart beats, and he doesn’t know whether it’s telling him to move forward or stay back. To get off the bus, or stay put.

He doesn’t know.

_10:57 PM_

_“I can’t keep standing in your way, okay?”_

“Excuse me,” the man sitting in front of Castiel says to the young girl with her hair tossed in a bun, as he stands up from his window seat to step into the aisle. The girl is no more than nineteen, fresh-faced and quite pretty, but she shrinks back as the older, balding man with broad shoulders and a wide mouth scoots by, careful not to let their legs brush.

_“I can’t keep standing in your way—”_

Castiel listens to the tape over and over, but for some reason, these words just don’t want to stick. Standing in his way? How could Dean ever think he’s standing in his way? That he’s somehow a roadblock to bigger and brighter things.

“Attention passengers,” a tinny, barely-audible voice comes through the speakers as street lights sweep by outside the windows, briefly illuminating Castiel’s face, and everyone else’s, with a warm, almost-orange glow. “We will be pulling into Manhattan momentarily where we will be taking a fifteen-minute break; there are washroom facilities and food vendors available at the station. Please make sure you are back on the bus by quarter after if you will be continuing on with us tonight.”

When the bus lurches to a stop, Castiel stands, his legs cramping and back aching as he sidesteps into the aisle, not bothering to grab his wallet or phone since he’s not going far, and his stomach is in too many knots to get a snack. 

He needs some fresh air, and maybe to stretch his legs, but when he steps onto the pavement and breathes in the frosted breeze, he thinks maybe he shouldn’t have left his things behind after all. Now that he’s outside with all this space around him, he’s not sure if he wants to continue on to Lebanon. Maybe he just won’t get back on the bus.

Maybe he’ll stay here forever, halfway between home and the highway.

It’s cooler now than Castiel expects for the eighteenth of September, and a chill works its way through him as goosebumps rise on his skin. He wraps his arms around himself, but it doesn’t help. He’s cold to the core. At least, that’s how he feels when he thinks of disappearing.

Of leaving Dean forever, without even a word of goodbye.

_11:15 PM_

The bus pulls out of the station with Castiel in his seat.

He’s not sure how he got here, exactly, but he suspects it has something to do with his phone, which he left sitting in the cupholder. 

_“I can’t keep doing this, Cas. I can’t keep loving you from four hours away.”_

And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Dean can’t love him from far away, and if Castiel is being honest, he can’t do it, either. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Dean with every fibre of his being, but it wears on you, and after so many years of being so close, they never learned how to be away.

Castiel rests his head back and lets his eyes move idly over the other passengers. It’s strange, the kinship developed between total strangers on a night bus, and Castiel would never be able to say what it is, but there’s something about a shared journey that connects you. It’s like, whatever happens, tonight on this bus, it is shared between only these people, and that feels sacred, somehow.

Castiel finds that he’s almost sad to see that there are a few people gone—their journey with him finished in Manhattan—and some new ones, too.

A couple.

Two young men, no older than he and Dean were when they met in their freshman year of university, with their heads tucked in close as they watch something on the tiny iPhone screen, sharing earbuds and personal space in a way that screams young love.

The ache grows, spreading from Castiel’s heart to settle at the base of his throat, burning the whole way there, and keeps on burning until he has to look away. 

_“I can’t keep doing this, Cas. I can’t keep loving you from four hours away.”_

Castiel stares out at the darkened cornfields. 

_12:49 AM_

_“I’ll be at the station, alright? I’ll wait until the last bus leaves tonight if I have to, but if you’re not on it… if you’re not there, then I’ll take that as the end. Okay? I, uh… I gotta go—”_

He cuts the recording there as the air in his lungs turns to ash, thick and suffocating, but he just goes on breathing, like that’ll make it better. 

They’ll be pulling into Lebanon soon. Into the grimy, rundown bus stop that’s barely recognizable as such a thing; just an old telephone booth and a couple of benches below a single, flickering streetlight.

And he can’t do it. He can’t stay.

Not with all this feeling inside him—not with all the love he has for Dean pulsing in his heart like it has every day since they met—because he can’t stand the thought of that feeling going away. What if he resents Dean? What if love isn’t enough and he’s stuck in this nowhere town for the rest of his life, wondering what could’ve been? 

What if he falls out of love with Dean?

He’s gone over it in his head so many times, but he always comes up with the same question. 

What if?

It’s unanswerable, and it makes his hands shake and his stomach twist up in knots because this is his _life_ , and how can he not have the answers? How can the universe be so cruel?

Because he _loves_ Dean; that much he knows is true, but for how long? Would it be harder on Dean to watch him fade away? Or to just never see him again?

Castiel closes his eyes, feeling the road bump under him as the whirr of the tires soothes his soul. They still have miles to go.

_1:11 AM_

_“I love you—”_

“Pulling into Lebanon station,” the driver announces, and Castiel's breath catches, trapped behind the weight of his decision. He knows what he needs to do, but it doesn’t make this any easier.

He can’t stay.

The risk is too great; he can’t chance resenting Dean. He can’t do that to him, or himself, because that would surely break him. 

But it’s breaking him now.

The bus empties save for a few stragglers, headed back to Kansas City with Castiel among them, and he doesn’t think he could move if he tried. He’s frozen, not even able to turn his head to find Dean’s sweet face one last time. 

_“I love you—”_

Castiel could cry— _will_ cry when the bus pulls away—and the burning ache behind his eyes pulls a lump into his throat. He chokes on it, feeling it pulse and grow as his hands shake, clenched around his phone.

“Last call for Lebanon,” the bus driver calls, this time without the speaker.

Castiel looks up.

And there he is—his whole world and the brightest thing in it—sitting on a bench with his head in his hands.

_“I love you—”_

The brakes squeal as the driver shifts into gear, and Castiel thinks he can’t possibly resent loving that man.

“Stop!” 

The bus jerks to a halt, Castiel lurching forward as he gets to his feet and slings his bag over his shoulder in one swift motion. 

He doesn’t take his eyes off of Dean as he shuffles down the aisle, not even bothering to thank the driver as he passes him. 

He’s doing it, and it feels right. Being with Dean has always felt right.

A shiver runs through him that has nothing to do with the late-night chill as he makes his way across the now-deserted platform with the bus pulling onto the highway at his back. He can hear Dean’s sniffles—see the way he wipes the tears from his eyes as he fights to pull himself together—and Castiel’s heart _aches_ for him. How could he think that Dean would be okay?

“I wasn’t going to get off, you know?” Castiel says, even and smooth, and Dean’s head shoots up, confusion, and disbelief, and hope all shining in his eyes. Oh God, those beautiful green eyes, warmer in the golden light of the single, flickering lamp. “But I don’t think there’s anything I’d regret more than not choosing you.”

Castiel doesn’t move closer, and Dean doesn’t move at all, but he can feel it between them; that same, near-electric tension that buzzes in his veins whenever Dean’s around. And with his voice breaking, his composure falling away piece by piece as he watches Dean’s eyes go glassy, he whispers, “Happy anniversary.”

Dean is on his feet and closing the space between them in an instant. His hands cup Castiel’s face, so tender and gentle it brings tears to his eyes, and Castiel’s bag drops to the pavement as he fists his hands in Dean’s flannel.

Their lips meet in the middle, soft and cold and oh so sweet. 

And this... _this_. 

“I’m sorry,” Castiel murmurs, their lips still brushing in a not-quite kiss.

”I would’ve followed you, you know? If you had asked.” Dean's words tremble out of him as his whole body starts to shake from the cold. “I’ll still go. I can’t promise I’ll ever like living in a city, but I’ll deal with it for you—“

”Shh,” he hushes, a smile touching his lips. “We’ll talk about it later. Together, this time.”

Dean kisses him again with so much urgency it takes Castiel’s breath away.

“Let’s go home,” Dean whispers, his forehead resting on Castiel’s when he pulls away, and Castiel nods, not really feeling like he needs to tell Dean that _he_ is Castiel’s home.

That Dean is the very best thing that could ever happen to him.

”Have you ever heard of Lawrence?” Castiel asks as they head for the parking lot hand in hand. “It’s this small town not even an hour from the city.”

He swears Dean’s smile lights up the night.

_1:28 AM_

Crickets chirrup in the flowerbeds outside Dean’s one-bedroom flat where the summer vegetables are wilting away.

Old, rotten tomatoes hang heavy on the vines, preparing to drop into the moist earth.

Pools of soft, warm light fill the streets as Castiel slides from the Impala’s cool leather, and it feels something like home, deep down in his chest.

Overhead, a bat squeaks as it flaps its leathery wings too close to the chimney, illuminated by nothing but the endless stars, and on the ground, right here, right now, Dean’s arms wrap around his waist, his lips settling on Castiel’s, and _this_ is home. He can feel it deep down in his heart.

“I love you,” Dean’s words ring out, an echoing promise.

“And I, you.”

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Twitter at [allmystars_AO3](https://twitter.com/allmystars_AO3)  
> ~  
> Follow me on Tumblr at [allmystars-i](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/allmystars-i)  
> ~  
> Follow me on Instagram @allmystars_i


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